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P.O. Box 3159, Eugene, OR 97403
E-mail: editor@dailyemerald.com
Online: www.dailyemerald.com
Thursday, October 2,2003
Oregon Daily Emerald
COMMENTARY
Editor in Chief:
Brad Schmidt
Managing Editor
Jan Tobias Montry
Editorial Editor
Travis Willse
EDITORIAL
^^U£ldc.S
& smacks
Quacks to the University Bookstore for recognizing the
perennial, worsening student budget crunch and giving
away textbooks. In light of the economic slouch and the re
cently approved tuition hike, it's exactly what 13 of the
University's luckiest students needed.
Smacks to parking on campus. Spending 20 minutes to
find a spot is ridiculous and no doubt costs the University
countless person-hours of productivity every term. Here's
to hoping the new arena is built on Howe Field: Screw par
adise, put up a parking lot.
Quacks to students who don't drive to campus. We rec
ognize that biking or riding the bus isn't practical for every
student, but we thank those students who can and do use
alternative transportation.
Smacks to the New York Post for calling the Emerald
and asking whether any reporters could dig up sensa
tionalist dirt for an in-state story. We are far from fans of
tabloid journalism, and we won't do their dirty work.
Clearly, the editors of that publication have forgotten
since their college days what the goals of professional
journalism really are.
Quacks to research programs at the University, which
scored a record $77.8 million in the 2002-03 school year.
It's a refreshing reminder that, even if most people don't
make the association as readily, the University excels at ac
ademics as well as at athletics.
Smacks to Damon Stoudamire for hiring lawyers and
challenging his latest pot charge. Don't try and get out of
trouble on an absurd search and seizure argument, Da
mon. You — allegedly, efi hem — walked through a metal
detector with your grass in tin foil.
Quacks to "Kill Bill," Quentin Tarantino's new flick. It's
too early to tell whether it will be the next "Jackie Brown"
or the next "Pulp Fiction." Oh, wait, both movies were
great. So was "Reservoir Dogs." Mr. Tarantino, we are your
humble servants.
Smacks to the Eugene Police Department. The next time
the agency decides to search for a police chief, it might be a
good idea to not renounce the other candidates before
making sure the first choice will actually accept the job.
Quacks to the new pedestrian refuge on East 13th Av
enue. Thanks to planners, architects and construction
workers, the refuge is a great addition that makes the area
much more eye-pleasing, turning a mere thoroughfare into
a very walkable promenade.
Smacks to the war supposedly being over. Designated
major combat ended May 1, but 175 American soldiers
have since died, according to DefenseLINK, the Depart
ment of Defense's official Web site.
Quacks to the Justice Department for investigating the
White House. Many people have suspected White House
involvement in the leaking of the identity of CIA operative
Valerie Plame. Whether the claims are true or not it's good
to see checks and balances in plain effect.
And finally, smacks to the National Cattlemen's Beef As
sociation for creating cheeseburger fries. The deep-fried
culinary chimeras are filled with a meat-cheese mixture,
and are making their way into public school cafeterias.
With more than sue grams of fat per fry, there's no need to
ask, "Where's the beef?"
EDITORIAL POLICY
This editorial represents the opinion of the Emerald
editorial board. Responses can be sent to letters
©dailyemerald.com. Letters to the editor and guest
commentaries are encouraged. Letters are limited
to 250 words and guest commentaries to 550 words.
Authors are limited to one submission per calendar
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address for verification. The Emerald reserves the right
to edit for space, grammar and style.
EDITORIAL BOARD
Brad Schmidt
Editor in Chief
Jan Tobias Montry
Managing Editor
Aimee Rudin
Freelance Editor
Ayisha Yahya
News Editor
Travis Willse
Editorial Editor
Schoolhouse discrimination
Then-governor Ross Barnett called it 'the
moment of our greatest crisis since the War
Between the States”: During this week in
1962, James Meredith became the first black
student at the University of Mississippi.
Barnett's words sound exaggerated to our
ears, but make no mistake: The dvil rights
movement was, in fact, dvil war. Our public
schools were freed from all-white control
through military intervention. Our universi
ties were liberated by force
When news spread through the streets of
Oxford Town that desegregation had finally
arrived at Ole Miss, the white residents riot
ed. Federal troops were called in to quiet the
violent mob, and by night's end, two were
dead, including a French journalist, and sev
eral hundred more were injured.
This would not be the last time Presi
dent John F. Kennedy mobilized federal
soldiers to liberate an American universi
ty. Less than one year later, two black stu
dents were attempting to register for class
es at the University of Alabama when
then-governor George C. Wallace blocked
their way. His infamous 'stand in the
schoolhouse door' ultimately failed after
the feds forced him to step aside.
Later that day, Kennedy delivered a
speech that Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
would laud as "one of the most eloquent,
profound and unequivocal pleas for jus
tice and freedom of all men ever made by
any President.”
"One hundred years of delay have
passed since President Lincoln freed the
slaves, yet their heirs, their grandsons, are
not fully free,' Kennedy said. "Ihey are not
yet freed from the bonds of injustice. They
are not yet freed from social and economic
David Jagernauth
Critical mass
oppression. And this nation, for all its
hopes and all its boasts, will not be fully
free until all its citizens are free."
Kennedy's speech was the birth mo
ment of the Civil Rights Act. He would not
live to see it become law. He would not
live to see the Southern Democrats and
their months-long filibuster defeated. He
would not live to see Clair Engle on the
U.S. Senate floor, mortally ill and unable
to speak, cast his historic vote by raising a
crippled arm and pointing to his eye.
My mother was a member of the first
black freshman class at her high school in
North Carolina. Like Jones, Hood and
Meredith; like Holmes and Hunter; like
the Little Rock Nine and many others, she
was a soldier on the front lines of the Sec
ond Civil War, the War Against Segrega
tion, the War Against Separate but Equal.
A generation later, as I pass through the
schoolhouse door here at the University, I
can see the positive results of my mother's
struggles. Back then she was greeted by
white students brandishing tire irons
yelling "Nigger go home!" Today I am
greeted by silence. The white mobs are
gone Oregon Gov. Ted Kulongoski did not
block my way into the EMU.
And yet, to be perfectly honest, I still
feel uneasy in this place. I feel like a for
eigner. The public university has always
been, and remains, hostile ground for
minority students.
I know white students will have trouble
relating to this feeling — this historical
feeling. Year after year public educators
teach us to deny or minimize our racial
memories. We are taught to think of slav
ery and the civil rights movement as be
longing outside of our bodies, to an exter
nalized past. We know better. We know
this history is in our blood.
We also know that the schoolhouse
door remains blocked for the majority of
African Americans and other persons of
color. Today, more young black men are in
prison than are in college, due to a racist
criminal justice system and continued eco
nomic discrimination that leaves nearly
one-third of black children in poverty.
As evidence grows about institutional
racism, so grows attacks on affirmative
action programs seeking to remedy its ill
influence. The Supreme Court temporar
ily defeated a major challenge to affirma
tive action this summer, but damage has
Eric Layton Illustrator
already been done in places like Texas
and California.
Like Engle on the senate floor, civil rights
in this country are barely dinging to life Our
legislation "with teeth," as Meredith put it
is slowly losing its bite sabotaged from with
in by the very Justice Department that
fought to preserve it four decades ago. John
Ashcroft is no Robert Kennedy.
This summer I was studying in the Uni
versity library when I noticed a tiny swasti
ka carved onto the back of my chair. That
is today's radsm: It creeps up on you; it is
subtle and silent.
And yet, to be perfectly
honest, I still feel uneasy
in this place. I feel like a
foreigner. The public
university has always been,
and remains, hostile ground
for minority students.
But we won't let the silence fool us. We
know every school in America is a radal
battlefield, and the war is only beginning.
It is up to us; the minority students who
have passed through the schoolhouse
door, to reinvigorate the dvil rights move
ment before the white mobs return.
On this our first week of dasses, we
should pause to honor those before us
who fought and died so that we could
stand on this campus as students.
Contact the columnist
at davidjagemauth@dailyemerald.com.
His opinions do not necessarily represent
those of the Emerald.
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Athletic spending not
a sign of success
Winning, especially against odds, is
what builds a sense of pride in an athletic
program. So it's unfortunate that Hank
Hager ("New Mac illustrates success,"
ODE, Sept. 22) equates "Oregon's greatest
symbol of success" with the expansion of a
football stadium for $90 million and
building a proposed new basketball field
house for many millions more.
Spending that kind of money on an al
ready adequate Autzen Stadium only turns
the place — in use for only six or seven
days a year — into even more of a white
elephant, especially at a time when the
University's academic budget is suffering.
Why not spend much less to improve —
if not expand — McArthur Court? It is a
great home court. There's another reason
for continuing to play there for years to
come: It is the home site for the very first
NCAA basketball champions, the Oregon
Tall Firs, who won that title in 1939.
If spending on athletics is not reined in
and placed in academic perspective, the
two major varsity sports eventually will die
— and deserve to die — from obscene
spending and excessive promotion.
George Beres
Eugene
Campus map needs
drastic improvement
The big campus map on 13th Avenue
near Johnson Hall is a disaster. It is very
confusing; Left is right and up is down.
Also, there are no official three-letter iden
tification symbols by each building name.
Perhaps the mapmakers on campus
could make a map that isn't confusing.
Maybe such a map could be made by the
students in a mapmaking class with ap
propriate credits given.
Alternatively (or additionally), there
might be a box with a hinged cover (for
rain protection) and a transparent face that
holds 8.5-by-ll-inch paper campus maps.
This is done at the Lane Community Col
lege bus station.
Perhaps best, a correctly oriented map
might be put on a horizontal surface. Also,
arrows and directions to a few key build
ings might be given. Example: "To get to
the Knight Library, turn right and follow
13th Avenue for about 100 steps. Then,
turn left and walk 300 steps."
This is definitely the way to go.
Daniel Weiner
Eugene